BENCHED FROM THE BENCH: Riley suspended from Courage season opener

Paul Riley won’t be able to sit on the North Carolina Courage bench for his team’s National Women’s Soccer League season opener at the Washington Spirit Saturday.

The Bay Shore, N.Y. resident will serve the second game of a two-match suspension for an incident that occurred in last year’s NWSL semifinal against Portland Thorns FC Oct. 2. Riley was coach of the Western New York Flash at the time and the team won the league championship via penalty kicks.

The NWSL disciplinary committee Wednesday announced it had determined that Riley committed misconduct characterized as physical contact with game officials, separate from referee assault. That was in a violation of Section 11.3.6, “Major Game Misconduct” of the league operations manual.

Since he already had served one game of the two-game suspension during the NWSL final Oct. 9, Riley still has to sit out Saturday’s encounter.